Together, Yet Separate
by Merida Hughsie
Summary: Charles and Elsie were always mirror images of secret yearnings and upheld propriety. They stand side by side, together, united ... but are they truly that? Very steamy and not the usual way for them to get together. Will be a four chapter long story ... or that's what I have planned. Disclaimer: I don't own them. They are Fellowes' creation, but I play around with them.


_**Together, Yet Separate**_

Elsie woke in the shadowed dark of her room, hands clenched in the bedclothes, heart beating with a force that shook her to her very core. "Oh God!" she choked out.

The cotton of her nightgown was hot and clinging. Looking down, she could dimly see her nipples thrusting through it, hard as marbles. The quivering spasms were still rippling through wrists and thighs, like the aftershocks of an earthquake. She hoped she hadn't cried out because the walls up in the attics were paper thin.

She fell back on the pillow, shaking with weakness, the sudden flush washing her temples with dampness. She had thought that she was past all these juvenile yearnings. Never in her life had she allowed her body to rule over her, but even Elsie Hughes was helpless in her sleep and couldn't stop her subconscious from voicing her secret desires.

"Oh damn it all," she muttered irritably at herself, breathing deeply as her heart slowly returned to normal.

One of the effects of a disturbed sleep cycle is that one stops dreaming coherently, or at least doesn't dream often. Through the long years of service and being woken in the middle of the night because of some emergency Elsie had gotten used to falling at once into oblivion when she lay down, with only fragmented dreams and flashes of recollection, recharging her mind for the work of the day that would come too soon. Lately so she had started to dream more complex, but still pleasantly banal. She was familiar with this kind of dream. Usually, though, such dreams came floating, soft as the satin she touched upstairs, and if they woke her she fell at once back into Morpheus' arms, glowing dimly with a memory that wouldn't last until morning.

This was different. Not that she remembered much about it, but she had a vague impression of hands that gripped her, rough and urgent, not wooing but compelling. And a voice, nearly shouting, that echoed in the chambers of her inner ear, along with the sound of her fading heartbeat.

She put a hand on her chest over the leaping pulse, feeling the soft fullness of her breast beneath the still sweat-dampened cotton. Her heartbeat was slowing under her hand, under her still rapidly rising ribcage. Closing her eyes to further calm herself, she heard the voice of her dreams echoing through ears and heart, repeated with each tiny sound of the night, and her heart sped up again, eyes flying wide open.

"You are mine," it had said. "Mine! And I will not let you go."

oOoOoOo

He dreamed of Elsie that night again. _She lay in his arms, heavily-limbed and fragrant. She was pregnant; her belly round and smooth as a melon, her breasts rich and full, the nipples dark as a rich red wine, urging him to taste them._

_Her hand cupped itself between his legs and he reached to return the favour, the small softness of her filling his hand, pressing against him as she moved. She rose over him, smiling, her hair falling down around her face, and threw her leg across him. _

_ "Come here and kiss me," he whispered, not wanting to waste another second without her taste on his tongue._

_ "You kiss me," she said. She laughed and leaned down to him, hands on his shoulders, her hair brushing his face with the scent of lily-of-the-valley and sunlight. He could feel the prickle of dry leaves against his back and knew they lay in the grounds around the Abbey even though the house was nowhere in sight. He looked up at her and saw her the same colour of the copper beeches all round, the copper both accenting and imitating her darker mahogany curls. Her blue eyes sparkled like the sky above them and her smooth white skin, skimmed with shadows enticed him. Then her breast pressed against his mouth and he took it eagerly, drawing her body tight against him as he suckled her. Her milk was hot and sweet._

_ "Harder," she whispered to him and put her hand behind his head, gripping the back of his neck, pressing him to her. "Harder."_

_She lay with her entire length upon him, his hands holding for dear life to the sweet flesh of her buttocks, feeling the small solid weight of the child upon his own belly, as though they shared it now, protecting the small round thing between their bodies._

_He flung his arms about her, tight, and she held him just as tightly as he jerked and shuddered, her hair in his face, her hands in his hair and the child between them not knowing where any of the three of them began or ended._

Charles woke suddenly, panting and sweating, half-curled on his side beneath the blanket of his small bed. It was not yet quite light, but he could see the shapes of his furniture and, since his hearing was more acute at night, he listened intently for the other men in the attics, hoping he hadn't cried out. He closed his eyes again, but the dream was gone. Charles lay quite still, his heart slowing, and waited for the dawn to come and herald another day where Elsie was close enough to touch but out of his reach.

oOoOoOo


End file.
